


Action Guy

by Chicklet_Girl



Category: Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-01
Updated: 2005-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-17 01:18:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicklet_Girl/pseuds/Chicklet_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atlantic City to Vegas in six days, quite some years before the events of <i>Eleven</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Action Guy

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up being quite a bit less porny than I'd anticipated, DancingUniverse, so I incorporated another of your prompts ("Danny/Rusty h/c" in addition to "Scenes from a road trip"). I hope that makes up for it. *g* Titled in honor of for creating this challenge community, and in honor of her love for all things _Homicide: Life on the Street_. *w*

They can’t mess around while they’re on a job, a rule Rusty instituted after they nearly missed the pick-up on the Corrigan job because Danny climbed into the shower after Rusty. So it’s always separate rooms, sometimes even separate hotels.

But between jobs, it’s a little crazy, with the post-take high and the pent-up energy. One time the only restaurant within walking distance of the motel was a Country Kitchen, and they ate every meal there for three days straight, but only because Danny refused to subsist solely on items purchased from the motel vending machine. Rusty revealed an appetite for Tahitian Treat that was so bottomless, Danny is pretty sure the stuff runs in Rusty’s veins.

But now they’re driving out of Atlantic City, headed to Vegas because Rusty has a line on a possible job. Rusty made the appointment for a week away, so they can take their time. Rusty is very, very smart.

The trip starts out remarkably quiet, by normal standards. By Danny-and-Rusty standards, it’s about right. Danny remembers how great it was to meet Rusty on that first job of theirs and realize Rusty wasn’t an idle talker. So many people in their profession feel a need to jabber constantly, but when they made it through an entire night surveilling the Tropicana in a total of fifty words or less, Danny knew he’d met his match.

They hit the tollway and Danny starts digging for change. They just got the car, so there’s no accumulation of coins in odd places like the glove compartment and the little tray under the radio. Rusty sighs and says, “There’s a roll of quarters in my bag in the back seat. No need to contort yourself like you’re in the circus.”

“Nice planning,” Danny says, as he reaches between the front seats. Somewhere along the line, Rusty got himself an old-school Pan Am carry-on bag, from the days when people dressed up to fly instead of wearing sweatpants and cross trainers. The quarters are in the outside pocket along with a one-pound bag of red Twizzlers. Between these and the Tahitian Treat, Danny hopes the red dyes really aren’t carcinogenic, because otherwise Rusty is going to melt from the inside out.

They make their way through the tollbooths, growing sillier as they go. First Danny feeds Rusty the tolls, and Rusty drops the quarters in the metal trays gently, but eventually Danny’s throwing quarters from the passenger seat, one at a time, and Rusty’s keeping track of how many Danny misses. By Pittsburgh, Danny owes Rusty $2.25 and it’s practically dawn, so they check into a Super 8 to crash.

They keep the curtains drawn and don’t turn on the lights. Rusty’s on him the minute the door shuts, mouth hot on Danny’s and his hands roaming all over. Clothes sighingly drop to the floor as their breathing gets heavy. They stumble in the pitch-black room until Danny feels the bed against his legs and pulls them down. Like every first night after a job, it’s quick, just thrusting and rubbing until they shoot. They climb under the covers and fall asleep so suddenly they don’t even talk again.

**********************************

The next morning, it’s a different story. Rusty is languid and focused, his unique balancing act that helps them pull off scams and burglaries, only this time it’s a leisurely exploration of Danny, like every post-job binge is their first time. (Their actual first time was rather sudden and involved an extremely drunken game of Honeymoon Bridge.)

It’s a wonder Rusty looks like he does, what with his need to try every American candy bar in alphabetical order from Abba Zaba to Zero. Danny touches it all, because they have only a few days until they’re back in business and this won’t be his anymore. The defined shoulders. The round bumps of his abs. The crease between his hip and his thigh. He licks a line up to the tip of Rusty’s cock, but Rusty says, “Wait,” and climbs off the bed, digging through his Pan Am bag and carrying a tube of lube back to the bed. He straddles Danny, covering his cock with the lube, fingering his own hole, spreading more lube there. Danny groans and runs his hands up Rusty’s thighs.

Rusty moves up and guides Danny into him, grimacing at first and then sinking down, his mouth open as he looks right at Danny. Danny is the only one who sees Rusty like this, sees his face so unguarded. Six days, six days, six days. Rusty flexes his legs and moves on Danny’s cock, and Danny thrusts when he can, taking Rusty’s cock in his hand and pumping slowly, stopping altogether when he can feel Rusty’s about to come. They go like that for as long as they can, until their bodies are thrumming with surging energy, and Danny lets the wave go, clutching Rusty’s hips and watching Rusty’s cock spurt white all down his stomach. Rusty leans down and kisses him, biting his lip when Danny tries to turn his head.

Danny looks at the bedside clock and sighs. They have to act fast if they want to make check-out time.

*****************************

Ohio and Indiana pass by like molasses in January, even at seventy miles per hour. The smokestacks of Gary puff in the summer twilight as they figure out what to do in Chicago.

“We could stop by and see Bobby Caldwell,” Danny floats.

“You’re just hoping his wife is around.”

“It’s not everyone who takes you for a grand --”

“Shut up.”

“-- in arm wrestling.”

“She cheated, you know. It was her table.”

“Yeah, the one in her dining room.”

“It had so much polish on it, sandpaper would slide off.”

“Uh-huh.” That had been a fun night, because only one thing would distract Rusty from replaying the entire match in his head. They ride past Comiskey in silence.

“How about the Palmer House?” Rusty knows Danny has a thing for the classics.

*****************************

The room is small but well-appointed, and downstairs the bar is dark, but in that warm way. Danny orders a martini and Rusty gets, of all things, a Cape Cod. He is an odd duck, and Danny wouldn’t have him any other way. Nobody he knows can see all the angles the way Rusty can, and if a string of successful jobs means having to put up with his cockeyed way of looking at things, it’s worth it.

There are two girls at the bar who look like they’re in from the suburbs, just that little bit out of date with their big hair and shoulder pads, their confidence as iffy as a week-old carton of milk. They look at each other, silently daring themselves to come over. Danny braces himself for whatever is going to come out of Rusty’s mouth. It ends up being an elaborate tale involving a funeral of an old high-school buddy, the best buddy, really, just a great guy, and so _young_ , ending with a crumpled face and Rusty’s assertion that “really, I’m just gonna sit here and get so shit-faced, I couldn’t get it up anyway. Goddammit, why Bill, anyway?” Rusty rests his head on the table and sobs as the girls mutter their apologies and scurry away.

A couple of minutes later, Danny mutters, “They’re gone.”

Rusty sits up, his eyes dry, and drains the rest of his random Cape Cod. “Good. Let’s hit the showers.”

Which he means literally, of course. The bathroom is smaller than the room, and the shower even more so, but that just makes it close and hot and _right there_. Rusty’s mouth on his neck even hotter than his hand on Danny’s cock, and before Danny can figure out why that seems backward, he’s coming.

That night, they leave the curtains open because Danny likes the way the moon looks, and the Palmer House is his choice. Sort of. Inasmuch as Rusty offered it as an option. Danny rests his arm on Rusty’s stomach and watches the moon until he falls asleep.

******************************

The next day is a slog across Illinois and Iowa, nearly unbearable because the unexpected heat makes the edges of everything sharper than normal. The sky looks brittle as glass, and the leaves on the trees seem to cut their eyes. Sunglasses do hardly anything to help, so they trade off driving in two-hour shifts until they can’t take it anymore, they’re fractious as overtired kids. Danny takes the next exit and drives along the frontage road until he finds a motel, a dismal affair with exterior walls of cement block and a parking lot runneled with cracks and potholes. One look at the desk clerk tells him to request a double room or risk a hard time, and the way he feels, he could really stand to punch someone. But a night in jail is hardly worth it, so he asks for the double.

The room is stuffy and incredibly hot. Turning on the air conditioner mounted high up on the wall yields a metallic whine, then a throbbing hum and an anemic stream of cold air that will cool down the room, only it will need several hours to do so.

“Christ,” Rusty mumbles, falling face-down on the bed nearest the door.

“You said it.” Danny stands directly under the air conditioner, which has little effect on his body temperature or mood. “Shit.”

“I need a drink, Danny.”

“Bar next door.”

“Handy, that.”

“They should just supply alcohol with the room. A fifth of your choice along with the key.”

They shamble across the parking lot to the bar, which is dark in the sad way, very unlike the Palmer House bar. The bouncer, a man the size of your average hatchback car, waves them in. Danny realizes that a bar requiring the services of a mountainous bouncer at four in the afternoon may not be a very good bar, but it has liquor, and yes, a G&T, heavy on the G, is just fine. Rusty gets a boilermaker, like he’s doing the Old-Time Cocktail Tour of America. The drinks are a ridiculously low price; Danny had forgotten how cheap it is to drink in small towns, even ones just off the interstate.

The afternoon falls into a blur, the two of them sitting at the bar and chatting with the locals, using their well-worn “regular guy” patter and letting the locals do most of the talking. Somewhere in there, someone starts pumping the jukebox full of quarters and it’s all Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson with the occasional Seventies hit. Danny has a hard time focusing on the woman who suddenly appears on his left.

“Hi, I’m Brandy,” she says, running a finger down his forearm. Her brassy blonde hair has a half-inch of dark-brown roots, and her caked-on mascara makes it look like she glued some daddy-longleg spiders to her eyelids.

“Hello, Brandy. I’m Danny.”

“Now, how’s a big man like you still go by Danny? You should be a Dan.”

“Oh, I like Danny just fine --” The rest of the sentence, and his thoughts, are obliterated by a sheet of pain cascading down from his eye, and another blooming up from his mouth. He turns enough to see a beanpole-skinny guy in Wranglers rear back for another punch. Luckily, the bouncer wraps an arm around Beanpole’s waist and heaves him up like a football.

“Hey, Danny, come on.” It’s a little whisper in his ear, and just enough to get him to focus. Rusty puts his arm around Danny’s shoulders and leads him outside, where they see the bouncer drop Beanpole on the sidewalk and yell at him not to come back. Brandy is standing right there, mouthing “sorry” to Danny and then yelling at Beanpole: “Dwayne Leroy Carpenter! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” and punctuating it with a kick to Beanpole-now-Dwayne’s ass.

They make it back to the motel room -- now surprisingly cool -- and Rusty flips down the toilet seat and lid and makes Danny sit. He wets a washcloth in the sink, wrings it out, and puts it to Danny’s eye. “Hold this here, I’ll be right back.”

He returns in a few minutes with his doctor’s bag, which Danny always thought was just a prop, but turns out to be filled with things like gel cool-packs and butterfly bandages, which Rusty applies in their proper order, along with a medicinal-smelling ointment.

“It was a sucker punch,” Rusty says, rinsing off the cut on Danny’s cheekbone.

“Or two, as the case may be.”

“I saw them arguing in the corner, and then she came over and started hitting on you.”

“Oh, it’s always nice to be used to make Podunk Harry jealous.”

“That’s Dwayne Leroy Carpenter to you. How’s your lip? Need anything on it?”

“Nah. It’s rakish.”

“Mmm-hmm. Here’s a couple of Tylenol.”

Rusty helps him take off his shirt without dislodging the bandage, then leaves him to his own devices for the rest as he takes off his own clothes. Danny means to leave on his boxers, but Rusty reaches over, saying, “Those go, too.”

“Yes, sir,” Danny says, trying to salute but succeeding only in banging his hand into his rapidly-swelling eye. “Fuck! Shit!”

“You stupid bastard,” Rusty smiles as he gets Danny onto the bed, and through the sharp pain of his eye, Danny can feel Rusty kissing the right , non-split lip side, of his mouth, and working his way down. He takes Danny in his mouth, and all of the pain is crushed, crushed under a wave of unbelievable, wet goodness.

“God, Rusty --” and he has no control, rarely does in these rentable rooms away from cons and scams and plans, he comes so fast. He clumsily wraps his arms around Rusty as he grinds against Danny’s hip, a sharp breath and sticky heat on his skin signaling Rusty’s finish. They lay in the bed, listening to the geriatric air conditioner and letting the sweat evaporate. “Remind me to get in more bar fights, okay?”

“That’s the Tylenol talking. Go to sleep.”

******************************

They wake up alarmingly close to check-out time and start loading the car right away, having reached an unspoken agreement that they will not spend another night here. Danny pops more Tylenol and sleeps, until he opens his eyes and it’s night. And they’re in Denver.

“Did you drive that whole way?”

“Except for the times Snuffelupagus drove, yes.”

“You should have woken me up. That was Nebraska, how did you stay awake?”

“You needed to sleep. Also, your left eye is swollen shut, which is probably a pretty good indication you shouldn’t be operating a motor vehicle.”

Danny realizes they’re outside another Super 8, like, what’s with Rusty and Super 8’s?

This room is considerably nicer than Pit with Geriatric Air Conditioner, brought down only by the weird-feeling Velux blanket under the bedspread. Rusty goes out for food and comes back with over-easy eggs and crispy bacon from a diner down the road. Danny is able to manage everything with his split lip, and watches Rusty eat his pancakes by pouring syrup on each individual bite. “They only gave me these little packets of syrup,” he explains, squeezing one and dousing the pancake-square on his fork. “I have to use it wisely.” Danny shuts his good eye and shakes his head.

They lean against the headboard and watch TV, Danny in charge of the remote because it’s bolted to the table on his side of the bed. It rotates like a helicopter blade, and Danny sends it spinning with his finger over and over until Rusty kicks his ankle. The television landscape is nothing but bad reruns (Rusty says, “ _The Patty Duke Show_? Are they serious?”) and weird sports like caber tossing, so they give up and get into bed. Rusty falls asleep right away, and Danny listens to him breathe and counts days.

Tomorrow they’ll take it easy, only half a day of driving, and then one more full day and they’ll be in Vegas. They’ll have their meeting about the job -- Rusty knows a guy who knows Reuben Tishkoff -- and figure out how to pull it off. Danny likes how they work together: he figures out how to do a job, and Rusty knows how to get the job done. It’s a good division of labor. He’s an idea man, and Rusty is an action guy, and any thief worth his salt knows an idea man is nobody without an action guy.


End file.
